You Got Served: Don’t make pronouncements about coaching hires

Happy Friday, friends. I wanted to share some thoughts today about the coaching “carousel.” First, though, two questions –

1. What lame-ass reporter coined that term?

2. Does he get all proud every time somebody uses it, and tell his grandkids “Your clever old pop came up with that?”

Anyway, some vacancies have been filled, and others remain open, so I thought I’d weigh in generally on coaching hires, and how we tend to think and talk about them, which is to say, stupidly. As an accompaniment to this article, I suggest you re-read this article I wrote back in July about the nature of coaching football in the NFL. Peruse it, and then come back to this article, after the jump. We’ll wait.

Okay, welcome back. Something has been bothering me about the 2014 carousel, such as it is. It’s something that I’ve seen in the comments from smart and well-meaning people here, and I’ve seen it from guys like Mike Silver (a thin-skinned toolbag) too. Really, if you look hard enough, you can see it and hear it anywhere football is discussed. It's just about universal.

In short, what has been bothering me is the level of certainty that people have about their opinions of the quality of coaches. They’re sure that they have the measure of a coach, from past history, and from what he says in press conferences, and that they can predict the future from that measure.

Problematically, though, they always cite evidence which isn’t really evidence; at best, it’s a small part of a larger fact pattern. Most of the rest of those facts are unattainable to the average fan or reporter.

A notion somehow exists that people who aren’t in the team’s building, and who, in any case, don’t really know what they’re looking at, can adequately evaluate the performance of a coach. I’m here to tell you, you can’t. Media people and fans do it all the time, though, to the detriment of teams. They ratchet up the pressure on owners, and that causes some unnecessary and unproductive churn.

Here’s a thought exercise – you’re a fan, and I’ve asked you to make a judgment on whether a head coach should keep his job or be fired. What criteria do you employ to evaluate him? Pick your top three evaluation points, and we’ll go with them.

Most people are going to have a list of criteria like this:

1. Won-lost record

2. Feeling that team is heading in right direction

3. Satisfaction with play-calling and gameday decision-making

Do you know what those criteria have in common? They’re all observable by a fan watching on TV and reading articles, and an outside opinion that seems reasonable and defensible can be formed based upon them.

There are a couple of issues with that kind of evaluation, though. Number one is that what’s going on behind closed doors during the week is the bulk of the head coach’s job. You see the guy at work for three hours per week, but the other 75 (or more) hours that he’s working are almost certainly more important to the long-run success of the program than what happens on gameday.

The three gameday hours are when a team puts their best foot forward against another team trying to do the same thing. Everybody gets paid, and one team will win, and the other will lose. The inputs during the week, the month, and the season will tend to influence those outcomes, but they aren’t solely determinative.

Sometimes, the other team has better talent than you do. Should a coach get fired for losing to a clearly more talented team? In a vacuum, the answer is no. The team should address its talent shortage.

There’s also randomness to consider. In general, people struggle with the concept of randomness, and it’s unfortunately human nature to falsely affix blame or credit to people (or gods) for random events that happen in life.

For example, when a team loses more fumbles than it recovers, the natural inclination of a football writer tends to be to suggest that the team isn’t tough enough, or well-coached enough, or aware enough, or fundamentally sound enough. There has to be something or somebody to blame, when the reality is most likely that it’s random, and it’s all based on how an oblate spheroid (the shape of a football) bounces on flat ground. (Answer: Unpredictably.)

If a team loses three games because of bad fumble luck, and goes 7-9 instead of 10-6, should a coach be fired? Reporters, fans, and historical custom say yes. I say no, in a vacuum. The fumble luck should regress to the mean, and your outcome the next year (holding all other variables constant) should be about 10-6.

Oh yeah, we need to talk about holding all other variables constant. You can’t actually do it, because the NFL is an enormously complex and dynamic system of players, coaches, teams, divisions, conferences, and schedules. Within that system, players (and coaches and teams) are improving all the time, while other players (and coaches and teams) are getting worse. One year, a team may have a favorable schedule, and the next year, it can be unfavorable. A head coach might lose a key assistant coach to a head coaching job, and have a setback there that causes problems in the following season.

So many variables change that it’s impossible to intelligently evaluate based upon a won-lost record. The majority of the variables are outside the control of a head coach, and should be understood that way. You have to understand the context around the won-lost record. If you attempt to do that, you’re ahead of those who don’t.

Here’s one example of needing to understand context – the recent firing of Rob Chudzinski in Cleveland, after only one season as head coach. The statements put out by the team said the following:

"We appreciate Chud's passion for the Browns, and we have great respect for him both personally and professionally. We needed to see progress with this football team. We needed to see development and improvement as the season evolved and, unfortunately, we took a concerning step backward in the second half of the year.”

The emphasis on development and improvement is mine, and I’ll come back to that momentarily. First, understand this in the context of how the average fan and NFL writer understands that statement, and the rationale of the Cleveland leadership. Which is to say, simplistically.

The team did poorly in the second half, and lost a bunch of games in a row, so we held Chudzinski accountable and canned the guy.

Chudzinski didn’t get fired because the team went on a losing streak in the second half of the season. If you got them to be honest, the Browns’ leadership didn’t care that much about winning this year, because they knew they didn’t have a QB, and that they needed to position themselves to get one in the 2014 Draft. Losing helps with that.

I’m personally pretty sure that Chudzinski got fired because his performance during the off-camera 75 hours per week wasn’t what Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi were looking for. They didn’t care about winning in 2013 so much, but they deeply cared about the development and improvement of the players they’re trying to build around. That’s why I bolded “development and improvement.” If you read between the lines, they evaluated Chudzinski’s performance to be lacking in that area.

To some extent, that’s what you get for hiring a technocratic scheme guy, who doesn’t particularly have a reputation for coaching up players, and causing them to improve. His name was hot because his scheme looked good at Carolina.

The reaction to Chudzinski being fired was interesting. A lot of writers fell back to the default idea that if you hire a head coach, you've effectively married him. And like in all marriages, that means you have to give it at least three years, even if she quits putting out when you get back from the honeymoon, or something. I think that’s garbage, and I applaud the Browns for admitting that they thought they’d made a mistake, and moving on.

Among Browns fans, of whom I know many, the perception was “Woe is us! Same old Browns!”

When anything happens to that franchise, the default assumption is that it’s a disaster. Trade Trent Richardson for a first-round pick (a great deal, as I said at the time) it’s “Why aren’t they trying to win?”

Mostly, Browns fans are tired of churn, and their context is the totality of the last 15 years, during which there's been a tremendous amount of unproductive churn. For Banner and Lombardi (and owner Jimmy Haslam), though, their context is the last year only. To them, it doesn’t matter what happened in the previous 14 years, and they have to ignore fan sentiment, and do what they deem to be best for the team right now.

You want another example of context? How about one that hits close to home? How about the case of Josh McDaniels in Denver? Yeah, I’m going there.

McDaniels was hired on the strength of promising to completely tear down and rebuild the entire football operation in Denver. He said he was going to emulate a better and more coherent football operation, that of the Patriots, and that’s what Pat Bowlen and Joe Ellis enthusiastically signed up for.

McDaniels set about to do exactly what he said he was going to do. He tore the whole thing down, and started building it up the way that he had been raised to think it should be built. He switched from a historically terrible 4-3 defense to a two-gapping 3-4, and he fired Jeremy Bates and ran off Jay Cutler. There was no reason to think that success would come quickly, given the scope of the changes underway, which, again, McDaniels had told Bowlen and Ellis he was going to make. (Remember, it was Bowlen himself who ultimately ordered the football management to trade Cutler.)

A couple of things went wrong for McDaniels. First of all, the Broncos started 6-0, and expectations got ratcheted way up before they should have been. Second, he refused to play nice with the local media, particularly the asshole Woody Paige. Woody wanted to patronize McDaniels, and give the kid advice, and the kid (rightly) didn’t give a damn what Woody (an intellectual lightweight, and worse than that as a football thinker) thought about anything.

You can flip off the media when you’re winning, and they just have to take it. You can ask Bill Belichick about that, and I’m sure Josh learned that method of media relations during his time in New England. If you start losing, though, the media can really start causing some drama for you, even in a relatively tame place like Denver.

If McDaniels had consistently articulated the scope of the rebuilding effort, and kept up a messaging campaign that it would take some time, and if he were nicer and more deferential to the media, they would have probably helped provide him with some cover. He chose to do the other thing, and he paid the price. Next thing you knew, they were uncovering the overblown (in my opinion) videotaping thing.

Then it was all just drama. Pat Bowlen and Joe Ellis weren’t used to drama, and didn’t like it. I believe that they determined that going forward with McDaniels being such a lightning rod was untenable.

The interesting thing, to me, is that they didn’t abandon his program. A lot of his assistant coaches were retained, and there was no wholesale cleanout of his players, either. The Broncos basically brought in some (much) more media-savvy guys in John Elway and John Fox, and they more or less continued the rebuild, only deviating from the existing plan at the outset in small ways, such as what to call the defensive scheme.

If you ask a lot of people, some of whom are Mike Silver, and others of whom are commenters on this site, McDaniels proved that he’s a bad coach with his truncated tenure in Denver. These people are sure of this, but they’re wrong. Even if the next team he is the head coach for fails, they’re wrong.

There are a couple of key biases at work in making them/you wrong. The first is the granddaddy of them all, confirmation bias, which TJ has schooled IAOFM readers on in the past. The second is one that was unfamiliar to me until recently, before I read Rolf Dobelli’s The Art of Thinking Clearly.

Dobelli goes through 100 biases, and all the way in chapter 95, he covers Illusion of Skill, which was originally proposed by Daniel Kahneman. To paraphrase the two-page chapter, Dobelli makes the point that in considering success, it’s not easy to determine how much of it comes down to luck, and how much of it relates to hard work and talent.

In the narratives that people like to create, luck is de-emphasized, and we gravitate toward understanding success as being a function of hard work and talent. We like to make heroes out of our CEOs and football coaches, right? Of course, if you think about it, hard work and talent, while mostly necessary for success, aren’t sufficient causal factors for it.

Think about it like this. Imagine a technology entrepreneur who has a great idea, builds a business around it, and eventually sells out to Google, and walks away with $500 million. This happens, and it’s not hard to picture, right? How many of these guys go on to repeat that success in the future?

The answer is very, very few. They had some luck going for them the first time around, and they don’t get it again in their future endeavors. Just because you get one great idea doesn’t mean that you’re a fountain of future great ideas.

As Warren Buffett has said, “a good managerial record is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row.” Dobelli makes the point that while a plumber or a lawyer makes their living from their demonstrable skills, for leaders and entrepreneurs, skill is necessary but not critical.

With football coaches (or entrepreneurs), if it was all about skill, you could plug the same guy in repeatedly, and expect the same results. You would know that Mike Shanahan is going to win you Super Bowls, or that Josh McDaniels is going to tear down the team and piss off the media and fan base. That’s not the way it works though. Things are much more dynamic and random than that.

In an environment as luck-dependent as the NFL, particularly where every game is zero-sum, the Illusion of Skill is completely pervasive. It informs our own perceptions about every aspect of the game, and since you typically have not-very-smart people writing about and commenting on the game, the narratives that they create acquire the authority of undisputed truth, while coming from a biased and idiotic place.

Remember, sports reporter is to reporter as gym teacher (remember those?) is to teacher. These mostly aren’t people who think much about how to most effectively think. They’re not reading Nassim Taleb, or Daniel Kahneman, or Rolf Dobelli.

I want to give you a current example of the Illusion of Skill in a coaching hire, in the form of Jay Gruden. The football franchise representing Washington just hired this guy, which suggests that they think he’s an upgrade over Mike Shanahan. My question is, why would anybody think that?

In Washington, Gruden was uniquely helped by his last name, because the owner is fundamentally a marketing guy, and every decision he makes is through the prism of making a sale to his fan base. Jay Gruden’s name is compelling because of his brother Jon’s track record. Let’s look at that for a minute.

Jon had a couple 8-8 seasons in Oakland as a young head coach, and then experienced equal parts luck and skill in harnessing a late career renaissance in Rich Gannon. They won back-to-back division titles in 2000 and 2001, and had one playoff win in each season. At that point, Jon shuffled off to Tampa Bay and took over a good team from Tony Dungy.

In his first season in Florida, Jon won the Super Bowl with Dungy’s team (and against Gruden's old one). The following two years, the Bucs fell to 7-9 and 5-11. In 2005, they had a brief resurgence with Chris Simms at QB, and won their division at 11-5. In Jon’s final three years, they went 4-12, 9-7 and 9-7.

In Jon Gruden’s career, he’s 95-81 as a head coach, which is a .540 winning percentage. If you look at the above-linked PFR page, there’s a lot of season-to-season volatility there. My take is that Jon is a reasonably good coach who isn’t any better than most other coaches at overcoming the effects of randomness. Like nearly all coaches, he ended up getting fired.

Jon Gruden salvaged his name by becoming a media guy, and much like Bill Cowher (another overrated coach), the fact that Jon is reported to be sought-after every year keeps his coaching reputation strong, and actually strengthens it beyond what is necessarily deserved in hindsight. I remember the Navy much more fondly than my experiences at the time warrant.

That’s the deal with Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher, too. Both those guys are going to keep doing TV, and they’ll be remembered roughly like John Madden is – a good coach who bowed out to do TV.

So Jon Gruden is overrated, and Jay Gruden is trading on his name, to some degree. But what about Jay as a coach? Well, I claim to be somebody who knows something about offensive football, and my subjective judgment of his performance is that he’s pretty average as an offensive schemer.

Nothing the Bengals have been doing is innovative in any way. None of their offensive players have taken any huge leaps to where they’re overachieving their talent, and in fact, guys like Jermaine Gresham and Andre Smith have often underachieved.

The quarterback of the Bengals, Andy Dalton, is now the target of intense fan and media scorn. The reality is that he has a completely average skill set, and that Gruden got him to play like a completely average NFL QB. Basically, he turned two nickels into a dime. Good for him!

As for last weekend’s playoff loss to San Diego, I put that outcome far more on Gruden than I do on Dalton. Where was the adjustment to the protection scheme once it became clear that the Chargers were getting consistent pressure? It was completely obvious, and yet Gruden did nothing to help his QB, and that was the difference in the game.

I’m not saying that Jay Gruden is going to fail in DC. I don’t have any idea how the effects of randomness are going to treat him or the Washington franchise. I’m saying that I subjectively think that he’s pretty run-of-the-mill, and that he’s going to be riding the wave of factors which are beyond his control, like most coaches.

Coaching success is only somewhat about talent and hard work. There’s a hell of a lot more to it than that, though. Anybody who thinks they can predict success or failure in coaching with any degree of certainty is taking an inherently stupid position.

An owner isn’t buying a result when he hires a coach. He’s simply adding an element to a huge pile of randomness and dynamic variables, and the degree of success that will be realized is not at all predictable on the date of hire.

Addendum - keeping it close to home, if the Broncos don't win on Sunday, John Fox doesn't deserve to be fired. Anybody who suggests otherwise is most probably an idiot. I'm looking at you, Mark Kiszla and Zach Fogg. (Who?)

Wins and losses in football games are not a function of coaching competence. Much, much more is going on. Certainly, in a one-game sample, no fan or media person should ever presume to think that a coach proved or disproved his worth, amid all the randomness, and the fact that the other team is also good, and is also trying to win. Losing a zero-sum proposition doesn't mean that you're a loser.

1. I’m not in the arguing business, I’m in the saying what I think business.
2. I get my information from my eyes.

Josh McDaniels did not work out as the coach and I'm glad he's gone. But your facts are wrong. David Bruton was drafted in the 4th round, and made the team. Seth Olsen was drafted in the 4th round, and made the team. Kenny McKinley was drafted in the 5th round and made the team. Tom Brandstater was drafted in the 6th round, and made the team. Perrish Cox was drafted in the 5th round, and made the team. SydQuan Thompson was drafted in the 7th round, and made the team. Eric Olsen was drafted in the 6th round, and made the team.

You're probably going to point out those weren't good picks, which is true, and a mark against McDaniels. But it's also quite different from what you said.

Posted by Chibronx on 2014-01-11 10:00:14

As in any leadership role, many different styles can be successful. But success is still required. What I like about the Broncos leadership is the progressive and constructive focus on player/team development and the collaboration on personnel moves. I think Foxy's style of coaching coaches is very smart. As a result, there is no crap or prima dona's you see on other teams. Manning also expects each man to improve their own game and they rise and fall as a team - with a cohesive locker room TYJE. I think some take this next man up stuff for granted - but despite all the injuries and questions on D, the team is still 13-3 putting up historic numbers due to great execution. Some notable coaching for DRC, Moreno, Ball, Clark, Manny, Trevethan, Phillps, Knighton, JT and soon for Mincey and Irving...among others...our coaches focus on their strengths and put them in positions to win. Now for the players after a great season of wins, its time to make plays. Coaches cant do that. Who will step up and make plays? A little luck, execution and playmaking will carry the Broncos to the SB - but when 10 guys don't execute or make plays, we lose every time. Isnt it great to be in a position where you know if our guys just execute[and dont turn the ball over!] they can and will win - against anybody? For us to be in this position despite the loss of so many starters is just remarkable. Hat's off to the FO and Coaches for coming through adversity....I do need to say I don't think DRC or others improve their game with Josh's screaming at them or my way or the highway scheme. Josh needs to grow up to learn how best to lead men - and what works for each. If he every does, his Xs n Os will combine for success. I have personally coached many dysfunctional leaders to success so I know it can be done when there is a willingness to listen and improve. Arrogance though will usually fail...

Posted by denverkewl on 2014-01-11 09:43:14

I agree with this and it is well put. The HC is a manager. Tecnical football knowledge is requisite but it's not the difference between success and failure. Guys like Fox and Del Rio have .500ish records over large sample sizes. That indicates that they are competent HC's that can take a team as far as it's talent can take it but aren't going to make a difference on their own. That's about the best you can expect from a HC. If a team wants a HC that will be a competitive advantage on his own, they probably won't find one because they are very rare, if they exist at all. Belichick may be one, but we will see what happens if he stick around after Brady.

At the time he was HC, McDaniels lacked the ability to handle all the job responsibilities on Ted's list. He could probably handle each one in isolation but he wasn't prepared to handle them all simultaniously.

Posted by ohiobronco on 2014-01-11 08:21:00

I still say it was Darrien Gordon. Two years in Denver, two Superbowls. Two picks in the AFC championship, and two more in the Superbowl vs Atlanta.

Posted by VonSwenson on 2014-01-11 05:21:12

You're forgetting a few things about McDaniels. First, his really bad drafting. After all the trades and draft picks he got, no draftee from the 4th round down even made the team, and that's from something like eleven picks in his 2 years. Second, and more to the fact of his actual coaching, is the way he cut off DC Mike Nolan after the 6-0 start and the team's bye. The defense carried the team those 6 games (the offense looked pathetic), and all reports suggest McDaniels ordered Nolan to change thngs on defense - the implications were that McDaniels needed to exercise his power and show who was the boss (as he did with Xanders). That trait comes up over and over again when looking at those 2 years. He fired the entire scouting team just weeks before his first draft, and then made some really stupid draft moves. Then there's the hiring of his brother, and replacing Nolan with Wink. Really? He was horrible at running an organization, which is what a head coach does.

And yes, the videotaping is a BIG deal, not something unimportant. It reflected on the integrity of the entire franchise, particularly Pat Bowlen. If you mean it's not that big a deal because it didn't gain the Broncos much of an advantage, then okay. But it's a very big deal in the most basic sense of honesty and integrity, and he should have been fired on the spot.

Posted by billyricky on 2014-01-11 05:19:52

I always grind my teeth when I remember that Seattle got Earl Thomas with the pick we gave them for Alphonso Smith.

Posted by VonSwenson on 2014-01-11 05:13:38

The only detail I've heard about the Mc-- reign is Nate Jackson's book, which was pretty damning. The sportswriter stuff is all outsiders' views, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by VonSwenson on 2014-01-11 05:09:24

Here is an interesting article about Shanahan and the Darrent Williams situation:

The author claims that Shanahan would have been fired in 06 if not for the Williams shooting.

Posted by John on 2014-01-11 00:52:00

Take some care when citing Dobelli, though he may have a bit of insight regarding certain ideas of thought, I hear Nassim Taleb and others have claimed plagiarism for his books and Taleb has even claimed he has lifted lectures as well.

Posted by The_Operative on 2014-01-11 00:49:01

Excellent article Ted.

Both examples are good ones.

While most folks place all the blame on Josh, you hit it all on the head. With most not wanting to hear it.

Keep up the great articles.

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2014-01-11 00:15:21

Ugh ^^^. Hard to make corrections my phone.

Posted by Broncologist on 2014-01-10 23:37:40

That is interesting insight you guys received although I doubt you or any of us are surprised the local journalists would take credit for anything they can get away with.

You are correct about who ordered the code red, if anybody. Although I would have to believe that he hired the guy AFTER spygate so you would have to assume that he had a conversation with him to the extent that this can never happen. That is more logical than him kit having that conversation to me. Right? Regardless we don't know and I this wasn't the point of the article which was sound.

Nice article, interesting read. That said, I thought McDaniels sucked. Is my uneducated opinion wrong? It doesn't matter to me, it's how I feel. I was shocked (but happy) that we started off 6-0. Then I was not surprised but rather in "I knew this would happen" mode when the wheels fell off.

Did randomness, lack of talent, schedule and a host of other factors play into how the team did? Sure.

But, so what? We had a guy serve as the face of the franchise and his team lost a ton of games. It was frustrating. It was disappointing. Somebody was at fault. I didn't like McDaniels' public persona. So, he sucked, in my opinion.

Do simplistic assumptions make me right? No, probably not. But that's how I feel, and while I did find your article interesting, it didn't convince me differently. And since this is the internet, my opinion has simply got to be more right that anyone else's.

Posted by FarAwayBroncoFan on 2014-01-10 22:29:11

You do the exact same thing, which might be why you're so sensitive when you see people on the other side of the discussion/argument/pointless-circle-jerk do it.

That last paragraph is sarcasm, obviously.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 22:10:32

Great piece, Ted. The world is results oriented, the average football fan is emotional and doesn't know how to think critically. Everything here had to be said.

Posted by chantech on 2014-01-10 22:04:04

This is the precise point that makes it impossible for me to check out from these discussions. The McDaniels 'defenders,' like me, say "who knows," and "things are ambiguous" and "it didn't work out" and "his detractors have magical abilities to read minds." The conflation of tolerance for ambiguity with being in the bag for the guy, is just crazy -- and it comes out of the mouths of otherwise intelligent people.

FYI, everybody I still know in Denver hangs on Woody Paige's words, for real.

Posted by Chibronx on 2014-01-10 20:40:06

So is Belichick's.

I think this is ted's point; Shanny's success and subsequent legacy had as much to do with his talents as it did with being lucky enough to have a team lead by John Elway (who dare I say carried 3 pedestrian teams to Super Bowls) before getting over the hump due to low draft guys becoming all time greats and free agents that worked out.

Admittedly, I might be reaching by asking Who is Bill Walsh without Joe Montana and Jerry Rice? Al Toon and Eddie Brown were drafted ahead of Rice & Montana was a third rounder.

Point is, all coaches at this level are good, the difference on some level is that the great ones came out of the fumble pile with the football; part because they were skilled enough to be in the right place but also partly because the ball randomly bounced to them and away from the other guy (think Marv Levy, Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas...and that kicker ol' what's-his-name).

Posted by Ralph_W on 2014-01-10 20:39:58

This is a great post, Ted, especially since it incites interesting discussion even concerning the points we don´t all agree with. Personally, most of what you´ve written here strikes me as very reasonable and necessary. I do have a problem, though, with your evaluation of the Chudzinski firing. You say that fans and media are largely ignorant of all the things that happen within an organization and attribute too much importance to the wrong stuff, so their evaluation of a coaching staff is mostly meaningless. But what about the people who do move in NFL circles? One of the most accurate criticisms about the aforementioned firing, in my opinion, is that it will put the next coaching staff on the hot seat immediately. Not being able to trust their job security beyond a year, or management´s word for that matter, could very likely diminish the quality of the next coaching staff. Most coaches trust in their skills, but know it´s hard to accomplish miracles in your first year on the job. Sure, they know all about the Not For Long league, better than most at any rate, but it seems to me there´s an implicit agreement about not making decisions about coaches before at least 2 years. I imagine the way Banner, Haslam and Lombardi handled the whole thing may very well have ended up in discouraging qualified people from going to Cleveland.

Furthermore, what about the players? In a way, their perspectives about coaches is as partial as that of fans and media, but their attitude has a direct effect on the performance, unlike ours. When the whole locker reacts so negatively and strongly to a firing, isn´t it likely, once again, that it ends up having real consequences on the field? Doesn´t it make resigning your own important FA more difficult? Couldn´t it dissuade other free agents? In a word, even if it ends up strategically sound from a football standpoint, the possibility of an impactful backlash isn´t negligible, in my opinion.

Posted by Goéland on 2014-01-10 20:31:14

Agree with most of your stuff but totally disagree with your take on this. The performance of Josh's team got him fired. Spygate was just a nice clean way to accomplish the firing. The DP did not use it as a hammer against Josh, they used as a story to get folks to read their paper and get comments on their web page. AKA doing what it takes to generate income in their business. Bowlen was clearly looking for any legitimate reason to end his mistake and fire Josh, and Spygate 2 provided the lifeline he desperately wanted. It was totally irrelevant if Josh was guilty or not, it was a perfect cover to take the trash out and move on. Thankfully, Bowlen has shown his main concern is competing for super bowls. It was beyond obvious that super bowls were not coming with Josh at the helm and neckbeard and Tebow as the #1 and #2 qb's in town.

Posted by Banjo on 2014-01-10 20:22:51

Trading away a first rounder from a stacked draft for a second rounder in a poor draft would never be a genius move. All it did was indicate McDaniels had a poor concept of player value.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 19:31:58

I would say you had many points you wanted to make in that article. And you made some.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 19:27:59

Ted, if you lived here, you would have much better appreciation for how the locals regard Woody Paige. Even his fans know he's mainly full of hot gas. To suggest that huge portions of the fan base were swayed by the arguments of a guy most people regard as a cartoon character is very dismissive.

McDaniels faced national media pressure by acting like a hyperactive kid half the time. The huge thing with Cutler right off the bat; the pissing match with Shaun Phillips (which is something you never see); the hilariously over the top celebration after the New England win.

Mike Shanahan did the same kind of thing when he took over the Raiders. He was assigning seats in the film room and not letting guys sit on helmets and just going out of his way to show he was in charge 100% of the time. It made him hated and it poisoned every aspect of his program and McDaniels was exhibiting exactly the same kind of insecurity.

Anyway, I try not to get sucked into McDaniels conversations anymore because nobody will ever change their mind about him, whatever their opinion may be.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 19:25:49

Well, I would say that you missed the entire point of this article.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 19:20:51

I think these are all great points.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 19:15:31

Woody Paige did not get Josh McDaniels fired, Josh McDaniels got "the coach" fired. An absolute prerequisite of any NFL coach is the ability to handle egos. Josh failed this basic requirement and it cost him his job. The pissing match with Cutler was entirely unnecessary, and Josh is probably one of the few coaches who would have got involved with that. Cutler is of course a first class douche, but his other coaches have handled him. When you replace a young talented qb with a journeyman backup like Orton you will soon be getting fired. When you waste a first round pick on Tebow you deserve to be fired on the spot. I still cannot believe that Josh picked Tebow in the 1st round. He probably is a very smart guy but that was one of the worst picks I have ever seen. Not only is Tebow totally unqualified to play qb in the nfl, the circus that came along with him was known. Not to mention there were multiple picks given up to trade up and get that guy. Josh may do well when that next gig comes. I would not be shocked if he did, but only because I assume he is smart enough to learn from his mistakes. Mistakes that doomed his tenure before he even coached one practice. To say that Elway continued the rebuild that Josh started is true, but it should be noted the most important move he made was ridding the roster of the trash at the qb position. Elway understood something that Josh did not understand at that time (but I am sure he does now). QB is the most important position in the NFL and the key to competing for championships. Manning, Brady, Luck and Rivers are playing this weekend. While Orton is trimming his neck and Tebow is a former NFL player.

Posted by Banjo on 2014-01-10 19:13:57

I would say you're definitely a defender of McDaniels. I'm surprised you would deny that because you've devoted multiple posts to defending his record. Some points like bringing Matt Russell along from New England are quite valid, others like assigning Rasputin-like powers to Woody Paige, have no foundation in reality.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 19:12:46

My comment was that the current ownership group has done nothing to inspire confidence in the short time they've been in charge. Haslam's solvency was put in serious question. Also, as you're well aware, Lombardi has history in Cleveland and his track record there was poor. That's not noise. Those are things that are of major concern to the fans of that team.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 19:01:42

I totally agree that the whims of fortune dramatically impact the game of pro football, and lots of people just don't want to hear it.

The reality is that if we do not win the Superbowl this year the most likely culprit will be devastating injuries esp on the defense. Or bad luck.

Go Broncos!

Posted by Bronco Fan Doug on 2014-01-10 18:50:22

Indeed, he did. Was hoping to hear your take as well.

Posted by Royalwithcheese on 2014-01-10 18:45:35

When the Goodmans left - the 2009 draft was in jeopardy. The 2 OL guys they drafted were sorely needed that fall after their RT went down and their LG Hamilton began to deteriorate. Neither of the 2 draftees were the answer for their needs.3 of the guys picked in that draft are still with the team. The Goodmans might also have prevented the Smith trade - that could have brought in a high pick in 2010. However - Smith was rated pretty high. Had he become a good starter in 2009 - fans would have seen McJedi as a genius.

Posted by BlackKnigh on 2014-01-10 18:25:31

Also, there is no "organization" in Cleveland that's fired five coaches in seven years. There's an entity called the Cleveland Browns that did so, but Haslam, Banner, and Lombardi weren't involved in the stuff older than a year, and can't be held accountable for it.

It's nothing but noise. It's about as useful as saying that the Broncos are 18-17 all time in playoff games, and using that bit of trivia to justify a prediction on Sunday.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 18:22:28

I'm not a defender of McDaniels. I'm a proponent of the idea that neither his detractors nor his defenders can make a very reasonable prediction about his future performance based upon their knowledge (moreso their feelings) about a small part of the overall fact pattern.

This article isn't about Josh McDaniels. I only included him to illustrate a larger point.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 18:19:19

The video taping wasn't a big deal outside of Denver because the Broncos were awful.

Posted by ElwayIsGod7 on 2014-01-10 18:16:41

The former Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphin coach Don Shula did the same thing in adjusting his schemes to the players and their abilities. He once said so in an interview that I remember reading about 15 yrs ago.

Posted by BlackKnigh on 2014-01-10 18:15:48

I agree with a lot of the points that I'm reading about how McDaniels did, but still, none of it is necessarily predictive of how he'd do in a second chance. That's the point - nobody knows, and nobody can know. Mike Silver loves Hue Jackson and hates McDaniels, but there's no way of knowing which would do better in an identical situation.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 18:14:04

Considering Denver will win SB this year and score 40 + per game in the process, it won't matter.

Posted by magster on 2014-01-10 18:13:59

I realize this is anecdotal, but I couldn't have been happier when McDonald got canned, and it had nothing to do with what woody or any sports "journalist" said or wrote.

Posted by ElwayIsGod7 on 2014-01-10 18:13:43

Fox's job is not to have you or I agree with his micro-decisions. It's to aid in having the Broncos win. If they win, we can all have our petty complaints, and we can all STFU. If they lose, the complaints will probably resonate more, but losing a playoff game isn't typically a carpet offense. If a demonstrably poor decision by Fox directly causes a loss, that's one thing. Chances are, though, a lot more would go into a loss than just one bad decision by a coach.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 18:11:47

McDaniels did struggle with people skills, both within the building, and without, but that didn't force the owner to fire him before the 2010 season was even over. The intense media pressure did. You'll never convince me that Woody Paige didn't run McDaniels off by getting a large part of the fan base all riled up.

The Nolan thing, who knows what happened there? All I've ever seen is speculation on it.

As for the "Spygate 2" thing, it was never even demonstrated that McDaniels ordered the video-taping or used it. In fact, the reporting suggested that he declined to even look at it. It was just some additional stench for people to speculate on.

And I can tell you that the DP definitely viewed it as a feat of their own journalistic excellence. At that time, one of our readers emailed Greg Moore (their editor) telling him that the blogs (primarily meaning IAOFM) were kicking the DP's ass. Moore emailed back and told the reader that they were the bomb because they broke "Spygate 2", and none of the blogs were on that.

It was a story outside of Denver for about 1 news cycle. In Denver, the DP wielded it as a hammer against McDaniels, and beat him with it repeatedly.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 18:08:26

I was going to do so, but TJ already hooked you guys up nicely yesterday.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 18:00:04

Agreed.

Posted by 303user on 2014-01-10 17:58:37

Can we get served about the Chargers?

Posted by Royalwithcheese on 2014-01-10 17:46:34

Understandably. I think the real "Bungles" are the Redskins as long as Snyder is in charge.

Posted by underdog on 2014-01-10 17:45:38

Magster said it. It seemed to be the last straw but your view basically runs counter to Ted's point that the media blew it out of proportion. Nope. It was Bowlen that did that.

Posted by Broncologist on 2014-01-10 17:16:45

It was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back"

Posted by magster on 2014-01-10 17:05:05

Many of my Bengals fan friends are thrilled Gruden is gone. Saves the Bengals the embarrassment of firing him but gets rid of him anyway

Posted by QDoc on 2014-01-10 17:04:43

Ted mentioned bias in his article, and your post on Shanahan clearly illustrates another major type of bias called the Halo Effect. (There is a good book by this title, btw.)

The book focuses on business results. When businesses do well, they are said to focus on their customers, be innovative, etc. but all good things. Then when times get rough, it's said they strayed from their core and lost focus on their customers, etc. but all negative things.

The Shanny book (I admit I have not read it) sounds like nothing but halo. He was most likely the same coach in DC as in Den. Probably did the same stuff and followed the same routines. But it didn't work. Why? Who knows. Lots of factors including the bad random luck of his QB getting his knee blown up. His principles didn't change. But when he was winning he was the Mastermind. Now he's just unemployed.

Posted by QDoc on 2014-01-10 17:02:12

Its interesting to me how any flks think the taping scandal was a big deal, because living outside of CO, it was almost a complete non-issue. In fact, I'd been on work travel and out of touch the week it happened, and didn't even realize anything major had happened until weeks after I returned to DC... no one talked about it at all, and it was just a complete non-issue nationally. As most folks looked at it, saw he'd fired the idiot who was taping and reported it to the league, the league wasn't concerned, and moved on.

Far more folks were aware of the Tebow pick, A.Smith trade nonsense, taking Thomas over Bryant, etc. as reasons to fire McD. However, talking to folks in Denver the tape scandal was a complete firestorm.... it was just a local one.

Posted by cjfarls on 2014-01-10 17:00:08

Fox is very strongly a talent-centric coach. Playing Ayers as a DE is simply playing a somatype player at its natural position... vs. playing Ayers at OLB as a scheme-approach, where McD needed a big thumper at LOLB to set the edge in his Amoeba scheme.

You can tell Fox is a talent guy because he uses LOTS of different schemes over the years. His defenses have run everything from undersized Tampa-2 to the current 2-gapping hybrid man-high stuff. On offense, he's run everything from power run and downfield bomber scheme, to the Tebow option game, to the current Air Manning short-pass show. He doesn't have a set "scheme" except as he players to implement, and matches his scheme to the available talent. That doesn't mean that once he has a scheme set by a particular talent (e.g. Tebow, Manning, Miller, etc.), he isn't looking for particular players to make it work (e.g. Wolfe to support Miller, moving Ayers more to the weakside so he can one-gap, the Manning show, etc.).

Shanny on the other hand has a specific scheme in mind, and firstly thinks its the players job to execute his brilliance (Walsh was the same way). There may still be however tweaks here and there to take advantage of particular player's strengths (e.g. see the read option stuff with RG3).

So both sides have to do a bit of the other, but the fundamental orientation to start is different.

Posted by cjfarls on 2014-01-10 16:45:38

still upset about the Nolan incident...

Posted by Truman Jensen on 2014-01-10 16:32:45

You really glossed over a lot of what happened in McD's tenure and while I was firmly on board with him at the time, and still think he had some great ideas and a clear strategy, to point to your past article, I don't believe he was a great motivator. I no longer think he was a good coach here although I don't doubt he might be on his next stop. I tend to agree with those that think he will.

McD didn't play his age to his advantage and did quite the opposite. He was too brash for a young guy and many of the players and coaches didn't like his style - it wasn't just the media who probably played a much smaller role than you say. Furthermore, the video taping scandal was a big deal. In that he asked his coaches to cover it up and they quickly showed him how much respect they had for him. Lastly, there wasn't a good defensive Coach that wanted anything to do with him, so the Broncos have had to rebuild nearly that entire staff.

Posted by Broncologist on 2014-01-10 16:30:18

When McDaniels was here, I felt like he was too often trying to fit square pegs into round holes because the team was built to play differently, both offensively and defensively. However, my guess is that he made clear to Ellis in no uncertain terms what he was going to do, so they should have known what they were getting into. If you're going to completely blow up the offensive and defensive schemes, then you have to expect a few years of growing pains until the roster is filled with the right guys to play your schemes.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2014-01-10 16:29:59

Bowlen and Ellis have to shoulder a lot of the blame for the way that whole thing went down. They insisted that no coach would ever again have the power that Shanahan did, and that Jim Goodman was going to be in charge of personnel. Then within one month, they let McDaniels assume Shanahanian power, and clearly he was not ready for that. We'll never know how it would have worked out if he would have just been a coach and someone else would have been in charge of personnel.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2014-01-10 16:22:29

Not to mention his St Louis stint. McDaniels success is much more based on Brady's success than anything IMO

Posted by Truman Jensen on 2014-01-10 16:22:21

Interesting reply and probably by and large true. I'd counter that Fox isn't totally devoid of making the talent fit the scheme (e.g.: Ayers drafted as linebacker by McD and being made into a DE by Fox). Maybe that's where Fox excels in just knowing when to be scheme guy, and when to be I gotta do something different with this kid or we're screwed (Tebow).

Posted by magster on 2014-01-10 16:19:58

Sometimes, games end in ties. I jest, great article.

Posted by NateDogg911 on 2014-01-10 16:15:48

I think you can have success both ways, whether with talent-centric coaches like Fox, or with scheme-centric guys like Shanny/McD. Shanny had decades of above average success by fitting undervalued talent into an innovative scheme. Pittsburg did similar with ther zone-blitz DEFs, as did Dungy/L.Smith with the Tampa-2, etc. etc.

With equal talent, a scheme-centric coach I think will often win. Unfortunately, because above-average schemes tend to be require at least a few specialized players, those squads often have a talent deficit since they occassionally need to pull less talented player to fit the scheme. The trick is finding enough undervalued guys to outweigh that drag (e.g. shanny and late round one-cut RBs, etc.), as then you can devote more resources (e.g. talent) to other parts of the team. If you can't reliably transfer that value, you're sunk.

As such, I also think schemes tend to have shelf-lives, and a scheme-coach will have to be good at other things to succeed when 1) Some other scheme guy figures out how to beat you, and/or 2) enough copycats come in and take away the undervalued guys you depend on to balance the talent out.

But I don't think fundamentally either is a better/worse orientation. In fact, I think scheme guys probably have more championships overall than talent guys... but they may struggle more with sustained excellence.

Posted by cjfarls on 2014-01-10 16:14:11

Ted: For sake of argument, let's say Denver loses again on in-game management (running Hillman on 3rd and 7 to milk a lead, FG's on 4th and less than 1 on goal line, punting on a 4th and short on the Charger 38 yard line, etc.) At what point do you scream "FFS, fire Fox now!!" ?

Posted by magster on 2014-01-10 16:12:57

Another Nuggets tangent based on Ted's post, re ingratiating oneself with media.... somehow Karl got sideways with Kiszla, and Kiszla wrote a whole season's worth of articles that Karl would fail in playoffs when the Nugs were winning. When Karl did fail (because of Gallinari's injury) the rest of the media took Kiszla's side, and Kroenke caved to the media perception.

Posted by magster on 2014-01-10 16:01:45

Love the article, still hate McDaniels. He's just too much fun to hate!

Posted by ElwayIsGod7 on 2014-01-10 15:59:06

The passage re: McDaniels I think highlights what was wrong with McDaniels and is right with Fox.... the ability to coach to the talent instead of making the talent fit the coach. That's why Fox kept some of McD's talent and went with it. He built a whole new playbook for Tebow once we gave up on Orton (and Orton was brought in by McDaniels and Orton was the worst Denver QB since Steve Ramsey).

It's why I'm generally optimistic about our Nuggets. Shaw came in and got the job based on his "I can coach a halfcourt offense and win in the playoffs." and now that he sees that he's not going to succeed with this group, has resorted to Karl-ball while he bides his time for the talent to catch up to his scheme.

In other words, a little humility in a coach can go a long way to success.

Posted by magster on 2014-01-10 15:56:30

There are certainly randomn things that cloud judgement of coaches, but there are also very real things that can be observed and impact the ability of the franchise to succeed on the field.

Strategically, I think McD was doing many more things correctly than wrong. As you mention, he was doing a good job of structurally changing the organization into a more coherant and focused unit.However, McD also had a very clearly observable and fatal flaw. He thought he was 1) extremely emotional, and combined that with 2) a strong hubris that he though he was the smartest person in the room annd could regularly "beat the odds" when it came to football decisions. Those in combo made him 3) a terrible media manager and inconcert those 3 things led to him needing to go.Some more elaboration on McD's flaws1) When things were going great, so was McD. We all loved him "trying to win a MFing game", etc.... This largely sustained him through the first season, However, with the injuries and struggles in year 2, as the team struggled you could see it in the coach too. Because he was so emotional, he couldn't provide the foundational strength the team needed to succeed in the face of adversity. Some of that is/was youth and experience, and some is simply personality. If he is to succeed as a coach in the future, he'll have to figure that out.

2) While its easy to claim 2 with just anecdotes and bias, its also very easily demonstrable in how McD drafted. He was very willing to sacrifice overall draft value to get "his" players. The Moreno/Ayers picks, Smith trade, Thomas/Tebow picks, and many other personnel decisions were all about McD going all in on his judgements. However, thats a very dangerous tactic to take when you're in a whole league of very smart folks also trying to win. In some cases (Thomas) McD proved as smart as he thought he was. Most of the best coaches/GMs (Belicheck is a great example) hoard draft value because picking multiple or higher rated players lets them hedge bets for the cases where your evaluation is wrong. McD set himself up to be excoriated, by sacrificing value to get lower rated guys he preferred. In order for such a strategy to be successfsul, you have to be right far more often than wrong, and his misses clearly show he wasn't quite as smart as he thought he was.3) Because McD thought he was far superior to the average NFL coach, and emtional to boot, he rubbed many the wrong way. His failures created an environment where there was no chance of future success in Denver, despite the many things he actually was doing right (IMO). The vast majority of teams simply can't succeed regularly with so much drama and negativity surrounding the team/coach.

He had to go, and it is telling that his replacements were 1) A coach who's greatest attribute is his unflappability, and 2) a franchise legend who is also a strong media figure as GM. Note the team is also more often trading back now for more shots, rather than going all in for particular players (even in FA). McD had some dynamism and in many cases I think maybe was the smartest football guy in the room, but until he learns to moderate his flaws (and he certainly can do so... we all can learn to minimize our weaknesses if we are self-aware enough to see them) I think he'll struggle as a head coach.

Posted by cjfarls on 2014-01-10 15:52:08

And Maa Tanuvasa.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2014-01-10 15:51:14

Gotcha. Sorry for the misunderstanding, then.

Posted by Hank Mardukis on 2014-01-10 15:51:09

I think what William Goldman said about the film industry is true in general: "Nobody knows anything." :)

But I feel good in knowing you agree with me (and I don't always know what the hell I'm talking about here) that Jay Gruden is a questionable hire.

Posted by underdog on 2014-01-10 15:37:45

I'm saying what you're saying. Coaching is a factor, but it's not anywhere near the only compelling factor.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2014-01-10 15:30:27

Nice line about the gas receipts... :)

Posted by Brian M. Jacobson on 2014-01-10 15:21:50

Oh, I know. Don't get me wrong; I loved Mike Shanahan. Clearly, his schemes were a large part of the success Denver had, and I did not want him to be fired. A lot of things fell into place during his early years in Denver. It's just that, in the book, he basically makes the case that as long as he follows the principles he sets forth, he will be a championship coach. I'm assuming he's still been following all of these principles since John Elway and Terrell Davis retired, and the results haven't been there. He may have been onto something in the book, but it was only part of the puzzle, not the whole thing.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2014-01-10 15:21:37

In all seriousness, Alden, I'll never get on a guy for winning with great talent because the list of guys who didn't win with great talent is so much longer.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 15:12:17

It was Bubby. Glenn Cadrez and Harald Hasselbach lent a hand as well.

Posted by Yahmule on 2014-01-10 15:10:44

"In short, what has been bothering me is the level of certainty that people have about their opinions of the quality of coaches. They’re sure that they have the measure of a coach, from past history, and from what he says in press conferences, and that they can predict the future from that measure."

I think a lot of factors contribute to this statement. One is the nature of discourse through this medium. This topic, or any other fairly complex subject, is simply not going to get due and complete consideration on a message board for a number of reasons.

Chud's firing was less about Chud - who was very popular with players and not a cold numbers guy - than it was about an organization that has fired five coaches in seven years. Now, you can say that this new management group deserves a chance, but the owner's inability to get his gas receipts to add up doesn't inspire much confidence in a fan base that has endured ownership that has ranged from decidedly indifferent to actively malevolent.

The McDaniels situation will remain polarizing. Assuming we're discussing informed parties, I think his defenders make as many assumptions about what happened during his tenure as his critics do. To say the Broncos under Fox and Elway have only deviated slightly from the Broncos under McDaniels, in any context, makes it hard to consider you impartial about this subject.

To say that any coach is a good coach regardless of results can only be a subjective opinion. McDaniels has proven he can achieve positive results based on his results in New England. He didn't show that he could do that a head coach in Denver by any rational measure, unless one makes a lot of assumptions and gives him the benefit of the doubt more often than not. The fact that he could tank in his next job as a head coach and still be considered a good head coach in your eyes is fine, but sports at this level are a results driven business. He will be fired. That's if he decides he wants to be hired again.

Coaching Calvin Johnson didn't strike his fancy?

He could even have even been reunited with his old pal. The guy who was only going to cost us Cutler and a first round pick.

I remember after the Broncos won their two Super Bowls, Mike Shanahan wrote a book with Adam Schefter called Think Like a Champion. Shanahan laid out the blueprint for being a successful coach and explained how his principles and methods were directly responsible for Denver's championships. In hindsight, it now looks like it was probably John Elway and Terrell Davis.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2014-01-10 15:05:17

You mean Josh McDaniels wasn't just a slobbering idiot and the Denver media DIDN"T love him? I wonder what heykyleinsf will have to say about this.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2014-01-10 14:57:58

"Wins and losses in football games are not a function of coaching competence. "

Really? I can get behind the argument that there are a myriad of factors that affect any given game, but saying coaching isn't one of them seems wrong. Isn't it more accurate to state: Wins and losses in a football game are a function of many factors, coaching being one of them, but not necessarily the determining factor?